The present invention relates to processing winnowers at a cigarette maker and more particularly to the shredding of winnowers at a cigarette making machine and returning the shredded winnowers to the tobacco feed hopper for the cigarette maker.
In the manufacture of cigarettes, tobacco leaves are processed and cut into preselected particulate size for making into a tobacco rod for a cigarette. In the processing of the tobacco leaf, the lamina is separated from the stems and veins and the stems and veins are processed separately from the lamina for use in the manufacture of smoking articles including cigarettes. For example, it is common for the stems and veins to be cut into extremely small particle size and used in the manufacture of reconstituted tobacco sheets. Also, it is common for the stems to be processed for blending with lamina shreds at a cigarette making machine. One particular tobacco leaf processing operation is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,556,470 to Brackmann. In this particular processing operation the stem is separated from the lamina and the lamina is cut to a preselected size for a tobacco rod for a cigarette and the stem is shredded to a preselected particle size and blended with the lamina at a mixer and then fed to a cigarette making machine.
At the tobacco feed hopper for the cigarette making machine, a screening operation is provided to remove oversized particles from the feed stream going into the maker. These oversized particles are generally tobacco stems (winnowers), which are removed by gravity into a collection bin and returned to another facility within a tobacco processing plant for further use. In most operations the winnowers are crushed and ground up into very fine particles and used in the making of reconstituted tobacco sheets. U.S. Pat. No. 3,219,042 to Molins teaches that winnowers removed at the cigarette making machine are moistened to about 30% moisture, flattened by rolling and then cut into a desired number of cuts per inch and re-fed, along with lamina, to a cigarette making machine. U.S. Pat. No. 4,672,982 to Vigg teaches a process for converting tobacco winnowers into a usable form for a cigarette making machine which includes crushing the winnowers and passing the crushed winnowers through a plurality of sieving operations wherein the resulting small particles are then reintroduced into the tobacco feed stream for further processing.